The Prime Minister has flagged the idea of taking Opposition Leader Tony Abbott with him to the G20 talks in Russia, depending on when the election is held.

Kevin Rudd sees the G20 as an important meeting for whoever wins the election, and the ABC understands he could ask Mr Abbott to attend the talks with him if the election is pushed back to October.

Mr Rudd is keeping the election date under wraps, but appears unlikely to keep former prime minister Julia Gillard's selected date of September 14.

The G20 leaders' summit will be held in St Petersburg on September 5-6.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie believes it would be a great idea for both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to attend the talks.

Mr Wilkie says the bipartisanship would be a good antidote to the past few years in Parliament.

"For three years we've had toxic federal politics - controversial, confrontational, when the country would like to see members of Parliament get on better, be more cooperative, [and] work together," he said.

Mr Rudd said that he wanted to put an end to negative politics after he toppled Ms Gillard on Wednesday night.

That vow does not appear to have lasted long, however, with Mr Rudd suggesting on Friday that the Opposition's asylum policy of turning back boats risked causing conflict with Indonesia.

"If [Tony] Abbott were to become prime minister and continue that rhetoric and that posture and actually tries to translate that into reality, I really wonder whether he's trying to risk some sort of conflict with Indonesia," he said.

Mr Abbott, who addressed a US-style Liberal Party campaign in Victoria yesterday, accused Mr Rudd of hypocrisy over the comment.

"He stands up and he says he wants less negativity and then launches a ferocious negative attack on the Opposition and its leader," Mr Abbott said.

John Howard likens Rudd to arsonist

Former prime minister John Howard, who first introduced the Coalition policy of turning back boats, weighed into the debate today as he addressed the Liberal Party rally.

He said Mr Rudd risks jeopardising a relationship with Indonesia that the Howard government spent years building.

"Kevin Rudd is like the arsonist claiming respectability as the firefighter," Mr Howard said.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has played down Mr Rudd's comments, saying that the Prime Minister had been verballed.

But Mr Rudd said that he stood by the statement, and that Mr Abbott has yet to explain what he would do if Indonesia resisted the Coalition's policy.

"What will he do if he pushes a boat back and the Indonesian naval forces push it back in our direction because ... they will not take boats back," he said.

"I stand by everything I said."

Meanwhile, Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey has joked that he should have drowned Mr Rudd when they walked the Kokoda Track together in 2006.

"I've seen all the versions of Kevin - Kokoda Kevin - and I apologise to the Australian people - I should have drowned him when I had a chance in the mountains," he told the campaign rally.

"In fact, I did actually apologise to Julia Gillard on Wednesday before Question Time."